Last update - 00:00 14/08/2007
Who's in charge?
By Yoel Marcus
Do you remember the scene when Ehud Barak (now defense minister) leaped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from Moshe Shahal? Do you remember the wording of the laconic official letter Barak sent Labor MK Eitan Cabel: "I've erred, I've learned and I'm running?" Do you remember the interviews in which he said that he had learned the lessons of his mistakes and that he has changed? Has he? Not really all that much. Except perhaps for the prolonged absence from political life and the significant improvement in the standard of his private life. But the most outstanding change is in the method of maintaining a modest demeanor he employed when he returned to his post as defense minister, which was manifested mainly in his prolonged and surprising silence. The justification he gave was being deeply absorbed in rehabilitating the army after the Second Lebanon War.
The important part of this silence that hasn't really been explained was interpreted by journalists as patient waiting for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's possible fall after the final Winograd Committee report, which would open Barak's way to becoming prime minister in a coalition with Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu.
Until such time as this miracle happens - and not many people are convinced that it will - Barak has been scrupulously depicting Olmert as a gifted and thoughtful politician. However, in actuality, a working relationship based on mutual esteem has not developed between them. Olmert has not really brought Barak into his innermost decision-making circle. He did not consult him prior to his visits to Washington and Jericho. And, of course, he did not ask the defense minister to join him. Barak is familiar with this "invention" of the indirect personal insult from the days when as prime minister he refused to take Yossi Sarid with him to Camp David on the grounds that there wasn't a bed for him.
Olmert did not consult Barak when he dropped his peace bomb in advance of the regional summit that U.S. President George W. Bush has initiated for November, nor did he discuss with him the unconditional invitation of Saudi Arabia to that meeting. The prime minister's declarations about the establishment of a Palestinian state on a large part of the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), up to the 1967 lines, made Barak jump. Olmert's commitment in Jericho to lift roadblocks to make Palestinian movement easier in the West Bank at long last extricated Barak from his silence.
Since 1967 there have been 10 changes of prime minister; none of them evacuated a single millimeter in Judea and Samaria. Barak, who only seven years ago declared that he was going for 100 days of negotiations to resolve 100 years of Jewish-Arab conflict, offered Yasser Arafat at Camp David nearly 100 percent of the territories, the division of Jerusalem and Palestinian sovereignty on the Temple Mount. This unripe and hallucinatory offer, which had not been prepared in advance and the consequences of which were not calculated, brought the Al-Aqsa Intifada down upon us and brought Ehud Barak the most searing defeat of any Israel politician in any elections ever. In the race for chairman of the Labor Party just a small step separated Barak from MK Ami Ayalon, who espouses territorial concessions and removing Jewish settlements in return for peace. During the course of the internal election campaign Barak, too, spoke about peace but rejected Olmert's initiative outright. Likud people are scoffing that Barak is disguising himself as a Likudnik. Now Ayalon himself is no doubt wondering whether he is in the Labor Party or Likud.
In interviews to the mass-circulation dailies Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv, Barak once again grabbed the microphone with the same aggressiveness as when he did that to Shahal. And he accused Olmert of feeding the Israelis fantasies about an approaching agreement. The meetings with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) were described in one newspaper as "air" and in another as "souffle." Barak declared, but denied that he had declared, that he does not intend to go along with Olmert's initiative to lift the roadblocks.
And Barak is being quoted as having said that unless we have weapons against all the kinds of missiles that are aimed at the country, there is nothing to be discussed. "My supreme responsibility is to protect the security of the citizens of Israel," Barak is quoted as saying somewhere from the 14th floor of the Defense Ministry. This pretentious statement by a politician who was not elected by the people to the current Knesset is not really precise.
It is the prime minister and the entire government who have the supreme responsibility for Israel's security. Before Israel turns to the important issue of two states for two peoples, it is essential that a clear solution be found on who is in control in this country. The Olmert government or the Barak government? Which position is the deciding and agreed-on position at this time? Olmert's or Barak's?
It is inconceivable that the second minister in the ruling hierarchy would publicly revolt against the prime minister and nevertheless continue to warm his ministerial chair. Please don't drive the citizens of this country crazy. Tell us who is in charge, where we are going and whom to believe.